Mar 1, 2016

Interview with Katie

Is being an Author all you dreamed of, or did it just happen?

Nope – I only started writing fiction because I absolutely love to read it, and I needed a new creative outlet when I first became pregnant and was not allowed to do taekwondo at the time. I was always a little shy about sharing my writing, but after completing nearly a hundred and eighty thousand words, I gave in and let my husband read the first draft of Cloud Shifters. He was floored – not that I was a good writer – but that I was “that good of a writer” and convinced me to send it in to a publisher. I went from writing for my own whimsical outlet – to published author with one submission.

What was the very first thing you ever wrote?

I wrote quite a bit of non-fiction—both in the form of published taekwondo books with my husband and scientific papers mostly for graduate school in the past. Cloud Shifters was really my first attempt at fiction—and I found that I loved it!

What was the inspiration for your book?

I remember as a kid growing up on the Front Range looking up at the amazing cloud formations and thinking it would be a blast to play on the fluffy rolls all day.

Who is your literary hero?

J.K. Rowling who not only wrote the amazing Harry Potter series, by also has an incredible back story to her life.

How much of your characters are based on your traits or someone you know personally?

I thanked my siblings in the acknowledgments for Cloud Shifters due to their wide range of personalities and zany interactions throughout our lives that helped serve as inspiration for many of my characters. I also wrote a short story based in the same world as Cloud Shifters called Cloud Chess. One of the characters in that story is based off of one of our young taekwondo students named Daisy that has been fighting brain cancer for over three years. Her story is touching and she has such a strong fighting spirit that I was moved to honor her in a small way.

Describe your main character in six words.

Tenacious, brave, & driven young angel

Describe the world you’ve created in six words.

Physical and beautiful lands in the clouds.

What scene was your favorite to write?

The students visit the famed Cloud Park on a school trip where they start by jumping and playing in the natural clouds and finish with learning how to tap into the cloud’s energy and shift the cloud to different physical shapes for a variety of purposes.

What are you working on now?

Book two in the series: Warrior Path. The first draft is almost complete—I just have to reign in my love for piling on the pages. In fact, book 2 is so close to being complete due to the fact that originally Cloud Shifters was so long that my publisher suggest I split the book in two. It took quite a while to unravel and reconnect to make two full (& good) story lines out of what was originally one book.